Turn On:
If you haven't had enough of looking back at the year that was, you can have a little more tonight at 8 p.m. ET, when ABC brings you "TV Guide: Greatest Moments 2004." And if you have, there's the Sundance Channel's look at life and spirituality in South Central Los Angeles, "Hoover Street Revival," at 9 p.m. ET.
Morning Briefing:
Ambitions, not terminated: Arnold Schwarzenegger is making those vague-ish I-wanna-run-for-POTUS noises again. In an interview with the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the California governor said that a discussion about amending the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to run for president was "overdue," though he insists he wouldn't want the change to be made just for him. He also opined that the Republican Party could benefit on a national scale from taking a fiscally conservative/socially progressive approach rather like his own. A leftward move, he says, "would immediately give the party 5% more votes without it losing anything elsewhere." The governor added that he wanted to be known as "someone who raised standards, wherever I got involved: I brought bodybuilding from nothing, I made the action film a genre, and the same goes for politics -- I want to do things that no one believed possible." Conclude what you will ... (Associated Press via USA Today)
No sex, please, we're Muslim? A group calling themselves the Islamic Challenge Brigade, apparently offended by a sex column on the progressive Muslim site MuslimWakeup.com, hacked into the site last week, removed the column, "Sex and the Umma," and issued a threat in its place: "IT'S YOUR FINAL WARNING, MWU CREW!! No more slandering of the Mujahdeen. No more peverts [sic] allowed to speak about Islam like [column co-author and University of Arkansas literature professor] Mohja Kahf and her warm fluid fantasies. No more using our beloved prophet [sic] name in one of your dirty pornographic stories. No more slandering of the respected scholars of Islam ..." After repairing his site and issuing a defiant message of his own -- "We will not be silenced and will not be intimidated" -- MuslimWakeup editor Ahmed Nassef and the column's other co-author, former Salon contributor Asra Q. Nomani, contacted the FBI, which is investigating. "This is probably a bunch of stupid adolescent boys," Kahf speculated. "I want to track them down and prosecute them." (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Party people: Reports from Thursday night's White House Christmas party for press, TV and radio journalists about two of your favorite people in the whole world: You'll no doubt be delighted to know that Rush Limbaugh won't be lonely this holiday season. According to the Washington Post, he's still hot and heavy with CNN anchor Daryn Kagan, with whom he attended the party, hosted by President and Mrs. Bush. Bill O'Reilly showed up with his wife, Maureen, looking, according to one witness, "semi-morose. Not smiling when he walked across the room holding hands with/dragging his wife." In fact, O'Reilly appeared to be a bit of a social pariah, even among his own. "I didn't see him yukking it up with the other FNC people," the source told the New York Daily News, "who were all being very social." (Reliable Source, Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Brolin arrested: Diane Lane's husband, Josh Brolin, was arrested on spousal battery charges and subsequently released after posting $20,000 bail after Lane called police to the couple's home during an argument. "Diane did not want to press charges and asked them not to arrest him, but in cases involving the possibility of any physical contact, the police have to arrest first, ask questions later," said the couple's spokeswoman, who called the whole thing a "misunderstanding." "They are home together and are embarrassed the matter went this far." (N.Y. Daily News)
Also: Break dance: Javier Bardem is in hot water with E! TV's Jill Marshall after he allegedly broke her nose while "crazy-dancing" at a party for his new film, "The Sea Inside." (Page Six) ... Serial Kennedy biographer Edward Klein is said to be at work on an unflattering biography of Sen. Hillary Clinton, due out next fall. (Page Six) ... New York Times Paris bureau chief Elaine Isoline and her husband, lawyer Andrew Plump, have rebuffed Jenna Bush and three of her friends, who were interested in renting out the couple's D.C. home, possibly due to Jenna's party-girl rep as well as her Secret Service detail. (Rush and Molloy) ... Ellen DeGeneres says that she and the ex-girlfriend she recently ditched, Alexandra Hedison, "have every intention of being in each other's lives" for some time to come (Rush and Molloy) ... The latest name mentioned as a possible replacement for Dan Rather? Katie Couric, whom Broadcasting & Cable calls CBS's top choice. (N.Y. Post) ... And rumor has it that Tucker Carlson is looking to jump from CNN into Deborah Norville's just-vacated spot on MSNBC. (Mediabistro.com)
Money Quotes:
Despite what you may have heard about Bill Murray's irritation at not having won that Academy Award last year, he insists he doesn't give a rip about Oscar, saying, "I used to make fun of the Oscars on 'SNL.' If I take them seriously, I've gone through the looking glass." (N.Y. Daily News)
And despite what you thought you knew about Rudy Giuliani and scandal-plagued Bernard Kerik's tight relationship -- and the fact that Giuliani Partners lists Kerik as a senior executive -- Giuliani insists their business affiliation is extremely loose: "Senior vice president of the group is what Bernie was when we started. I think that remains his title, but that's not the way we primarily relate to him. We should probably straighten it out and point out where his ownership interest is and primary work is done." (Newsweek via N.Y. Post)
-- Amy Reiter
This story has been corrected since it was originally published.
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